Chapter 6

From now on, the old man devoted himself to the training of the boy in the
handling of his lance and battle-axe, but each day also, a period was
allotted to the sword, until, by the time the youth had turned sixteen,
even the old man himself was as but a novice by comparison with the
marvelous skill of his pupil.

During these days, the boy rode Sir Mortimer abroad in many directions
until he knew every bypath within a radius of fifty miles of Torn.
Sometimes the old man accompanied him, but more often he rode alone.

On one occasion, he chanced upon a hut at the outskirts of a small hamlet
not far from Torn and, with the curiosity of boyhood, determined to enter
and have speech with the inmates, for by this time the natural desire for
companionship was commencing to assert itself. In all his life, he
remembered only the company of the old man, who never spoke except when
necessity required.

The hut was occupied by an old priest, and as the boy in armor pushed in,
without the usual formality of knocking, the old man looked up with an
expression of annoyance and disapproval.

"What now," he said, "have the King's men respect neither for piety nor age
that they burst in upon the seclusion of a holy man without so much as a
'by your leave' ?"

"I am no king's man," replied the boy quietly, "I am Norman of Torn, who
has neither a king nor a god, and who says 'by your leave' to no man. But
I have come in peace because I wish to talk to another than my father.
Therefore you may talk to me, priest," he concluded with haughty
peremptoriness.

"By the nose of John, but it must be a king has deigned to honor me with
his commands," laughed the priest. "Raise your visor, My Lord, I would
fain look upon the countenance from which issue the commands of royalty."

The priest was a large man with beaming, kindly eyes, and a round jovial
face. There was no bite in the tones of his good-natured retort, and so,
smiling, the boy raised his visor.

"By the ear of Gabriel," cried the good father, "a child in armor !"

"A child in years, mayhap," replied the boy, "but a good child to own as a
friend, if one has enemies who wear swords."

"Then we shall be friends, Norman of Torn, for albeit I have few enemies,
no man has too many friends, and I like your face and your manner, though
there be much to wish for in your manners. Sit down and eat with me, and I
will talk to your heart's content, for be there one other thing I more love
than eating, it is talking."

With the priest's aid, the boy laid aside his armor, for it was heavy and
uncomfortable, and together the two sat down to the meal that was already
partially on the board.

Thus began a friendship which lasted during the lifetime of the good
priest. Whenever he could do so, Norman of Torn visited his friend, Father
Claude. It was he who taught the boy to read and write in French, English
and Latin at a time when but few of the nobles could sign their own names.

French was spoken almost exclusively at court and among the higher classes
of society, and all public documents were inscribed either in French or
Latin, although about this time the first proclamation written in the
English tongue was issued by an English king to his subjects.

Father Claude taught the boy to respect the rights of others, to espouse
the cause of the poor and weak, to revere God and to believe that the
principal reason for man's existence was to protect woman. All of virtue
and chivalry and true manhood which his old guardian had neglected to
inculcate in the boy's mind, the good priest planted there, but he could
not eradicate his deep-seated hatred for the English or his belief that the
real test of manhood lay in a desire to fight to the death with a sword.

An occurrence which befell during one of the boy's earlier visits to his
new friend rather decided the latter that no arguments he could bring to
bear could ever overcome the bald fact that to this very belief of the
boy's, and his ability to back it up with acts, the good father owed a
great deal, possibly his life.

As they were seated in the priest's hut one afternoon, a rough knock fell
upon the door which was immediately pushed open to admit as disreputable a
band of ruffians as ever polluted the sight of man. Six of them there
were, clothed in dirty leather, and wearing swords and daggers at their
sides.

The leader was a mighty fellow with a great shock of coarse black hair and
a red, bloated face almost concealed by a huge matted black beard. Behind
him pushed another giant with red hair and a bristling mustache; while the
third was marked by a terrible scar across his left cheek and forehead and
from a blow which had evidently put out his left eye, for that socket was
empty, and the sunken eyelid but partly covered the inflamed red of the
hollow where his eye had been.

"A ha, my hearties," roared the leader, turning to his motley crew, "fine
pickings here indeed. A swine of God fattened upon the sweat of such poor,
honest devils as we, and a young shoat who, by his looks, must have pieces
of gold in his belt.

"Say your prayers, my pigeons," he continued, with a vile oath, "for The
Black Wolf leaves no evidence behind him to tie his neck with a halter
later, and dead men talk the least."

"If it be The Black Wolf," whispered Father Claude to the boy, "no worse
fate could befall us for he preys ever upon the clergy, and when drunk, as
he now is, he murders his victims. I will throw myself before them while
you hasten through the rear doorway to your horse, and make good your
escape." He spoke in French, and held his hands in the attitude of prayer,
so that he quite entirely misled the ruffians, who had no idea that he was
communicating with the boy.

Norman of Torn could scarce repress a smile at this clever ruse of the old
priest, and, assuming a similar attitude, he replied in French:

"The good Father Claude does not know Norman of Torn if he thinks he runs
out the back door like an old woman because a sword looks in at the front
door."

Then rising he addressed the ruffians.

"I do not know what manner of grievance you hold against my good friend
here, nor neither do I care. It is sufficient that he is the friend of
Norman of Torn, and that Norman of Torn be here in person to acknowledge
the debt of friendship. Have at you, sir knights of the great filth and
the mighty stink !" and with drawn sword he vaulted over the table and fell
upon the surprised leader.

In the little room, but two could engage him at once, but so fiercely did
his blade swing and so surely did he thrust that, in a bare moment, The
Black Wolf lay dead upon the floor and the red giant, Shandy, was badly,
though not fatally wounded. The four remaining ruffians backed quickly
from the hut, and a more cautious fighter would have let them go their way
in peace, for in the open, four against one are odds no man may pit himself
against with impunity. But Norman of Torn saw red when he fought and the
red lured him ever on into the thickest of the fray. Only once before had
he fought to the death, but that once had taught him the love of it, and
ever after until his death, it marked his manner of fighting; so that men
who loathed and hated and feared him were as one with those who loved him
in acknowledging that never before had God joined in the human frame
absolute supremacy with the sword and such utter fearlessness.

So it was, now, that instead of being satisfied with his victory, he rushed
out after the four knaves. Once in the open, they turned upon him, but he
sprang into their midst with his seething blade, and it was as though they
faced four men rather than one, so quickly did he parry a thrust here and
return a cut there. In a moment one was disarmed, another down, and the
remaining two fleeing for their lives toward the high road with Norman of
Torn close at their heels.

Young, agile and perfect in health, he outclassed them in running as well
as in swordsmanship, and ere they had made fifty paces, both had thrown
away their swords and were on their knees pleading for their lives.

"Come back to the good priest's hut, and we shall see what he may say,"
replied Norman of Torn.

On the way back, they found the man who had been disarmed bending over his
wounded comrade. They were brothers, named Flory, and one would not desert
the other. It was evident that the wounded man was in no danger, so Norman
of Torn ordered the others to assist him into the hut, where they found Red
Shandy sitting propped against the wall while the good father poured the
contents of a flagon down his eager throat.

The villain's eyes fairly popped from his head when he saw his four
comrades coming, unarmed and prisoners, back to the little room.

"The Black Wolf dead, Red Shandy and John Flory wounded, James Flory, One
Eye Kanty and Peter the Hermit prisoners !" he ejaculated.

"Man or devil ! By the Pope's hind leg, who and what be ye ?" he said,
turning to Norman of Torn.

"I be your master and ye be my men," said Norman of Torn. "Me ye shall
serve in fairer work than ye have selected for yourselves, but with
fighting a-plenty and good reward."

The sight of this gang of ruffians banded together to prey upon the clergy
had given rise to an idea in the boy's mind, which had been revolving in a
nebulous way within the innermost recesses of his subconsciousness since
his vanquishing of the three knights had brought him, so easily, such
riches in the form of horses, arms, armor and gold. As was always his wont
in his after life, to think was to act.

"With The Black Wolf dead, and may the devil pull out his eyes with red hot
tongs, we might look farther and fare worse, mates, in search of a chief,"
spoke Red Shandy, eyeing his fellows, "for verily any man, be he but a
stripling, who can vanquish six such as we, be fit to command us."

"But what be the duties ?" said he whom they called Peter the Hermit.

"To follow Norman of Torn where he may lead, to protect the poor and the
weak, to lay down your lives in defence of woman, and to prey upon rich
Englishmen and harass the King of England."

The last two clauses of these articles of faith appealed to the ruffians so
strongly that they would have subscribed to anything, even daily mass, and
a bath, had that been necessary to admit them to the service of Norman of
Torn.

"Aye, aye !" they cried. "We be your men, indeed."

"Wait," said Norman of Torn, "there is more. You are to obey my every
command on pain of instant death, and one-half of all your gains are to be
mine. On my side, I will clothe and feed you, furnish you with mounts and
armor and weapons and a roof to sleep under, and fight for and with you
with a sword arm which you know to be no mean protector. Are you
satisfied ?"

"That we are," and "Long live Norman of Torn," and "Here's to the chief of
the Torns" signified the ready assent of the burly cut-throats.

"Then swear it as ye kiss the hilt of my sword and this token," pursued
Norman of Torn catching up a crucifix from the priest's table.

With these formalities was born the Clan Torn, which grew in a few years to
number a thousand men, and which defied a king's army and helped to make
Simon de Montfort virtual ruler of England.

Almost immediately commenced that series of outlaw acts upon neighboring
barons, and chance members of the gentry who happened to be caught in the
open by the outlaws, that filled the coffers of Norman of Torn with many
pieces of gold and silver, and placed a price upon his head ere he had
scarce turned eighteen.

That he had no fear of or desire to avoid responsibility for his acts, he
grimly evidenced by marking with a dagger's point upon the foreheads of
those who fell before his own sword the initials NT.

As his following and wealth increased, he rebuilt and enlarged the grim
Castle of Torn, and again dammed the little stream which had furnished the
moat with water in bygone days.

Through all the length and breadth of the country that witnessed his
activities, his very name was worshipped by poor and lowly and oppressed.
The money he took from the King's tax gatherers, he returned to the
miserable peasants of the district, and once when Henry III sent a little
expedition against him, he surrounded and captured the entire force, and,
stripping them, gave their clothing to the poor, and escorted them, naked,
back to the very gates of London.

By the time he was twenty, Norman the Devil, as the King himself had dubbed
him, was known by reputation throughout all England, though no man had seen
his face and lived other than his friends and followers. He had become a
power to reckon with in the fast culminating quarrel between King Henry and
his foreign favorites on one side, and the Saxon and Norman barons on the
other.

Neither side knew which way his power might be turned, for Norman of Torn
had preyed almost equally upon royalist and insurgent. Personally, he had
decided to join neither party, but to take advantage of the turmoil of the
times to prey without partiality upon both.

As Norman of Torn approached his grim castle home with his five filthy,
ragged cut-throats on the day of his first meeting with them, the old man
of Torn stood watching the little party from one of the small towers of the
barbican.

Halting beneath this outer gate, the youth winded the horn which hung at
his side in mimicry of the custom of the times.

"What ho, without there !" challenged the old man entering grimly into the
spirit of the play.

"'Tis Sir Norman of Torn," spoke up Red Shandy, "with his great host of
noble knights and men-at-arms and squires and lackeys and sumpter beasts.
Open in the name of the good right arm of Sir Norman of Torn."

"What means this, my son ?" said the old man as Norman of Torn dismounted
within the ballium.

The youth narrated the events of the morning, concluding with, "These,
then, be my men, father; and together we shall fare forth upon the highways
and into the byways of England, to collect from the rich English pigs that
living which you have ever taught me was owing us."

"'Tis well, my son, and even as I myself would have it; together we shall
ride out, and where we ride, a trail of blood shall mark our way.

"From now, henceforth, the name and fame of Norman of Torn shall grow in
the land, until even the King shall tremble when he hears it, and shall
hate and loathe ye as I have even taught ye to hate and loathe him.

"All England shall curse ye and the blood of Saxon and Norman shall never
dry upon your blade."

As the old man walked away toward the great gate of the castle after this
outbreak, Shandy, turning to Norman of Torn, with a wide grin, said:

"By the Pope's hind leg, but thy amiable father loveth the English. There
should be great riding after such as he."

"Ye ride after ME, varlet," cried Norman of Torn, "an' lest ye should
forget again so soon who be thy master, take that, as a reminder," and he
struck the red giant full upon the mouth with his clenched fist -- so that
the fellow tumbled heavily to the earth.

He was on his feet in an instant, spitting blood, and in a towering rage.
As he rushed, bull-like, toward Norman of Torn, the latter made no move to
draw; he but stood with folded arms, eyeing Shandy with cold, level gaze;
his head held high, haughty face marked by an arrogant sneer of contempt.

The great ruffian paused, then stopped, slowly a sheepish smile overspread
his countenance and, going upon one knee, he took the hand of Norman of
Torn and kissed it, as some great and loyal noble knight might have kissed
his king's hand in proof of his love and fealty. There was a certain rude,
though chivalrous grandeur in the act; and it marked not only the beginning
of a lifelong devotion and loyalty on the part of Shandy toward his young
master, but was prophetic of the attitude which Norman of Torn was to
inspire in all the men who served him during the long years that saw
thousands pass the barbicans of Torn to crave a position beneath his grim
banner.

As Shandy rose, one by one, John Flory, James, his brother, One Eye Kanty,
and Peter the Hermit knelt before their young lord and kissed his hand.
From the Great Court beyond, a little, grim, gray, old man had watched this
scene, a slight smile upon his old, malicious face.

"'Tis to transcend even my dearest dreams," he muttered. "'S death, but he
be more a king than Henry himself. God speed the day of his coronation,
when, before the very eyes of the Plantagenet hound, a black cap shall be
placed upon his head for a crown; beneath his feet the platform of a wooden
gibbet for a throne."